Gacha Kingdom Building
Chapter 243 - 243: Curtains Drawn

In the weeks following our meeting with King Gerbil for his proposal of peace, almost every single one of Hamperlon's cities and towns fell to Isabella's armies.

With her expressing no desire to reach a peaceful agreement, the war continued until all Gerbil had left was his capital city, Amencia.

A few towns surrounded the city, but they put up little resistance to our attacks, and soon enough, we were at the outskirts.

With the territories frozen by the North Dragon and the front we established against them, there was simply no escape for anyone still willing to fight for their side.

Hamperlon, once a proud and powerful country, was now anything but.

The influence it had, the danger it represented, those were now tales for history books, if they remember their existence at all.

Even its people are now seen and treated as cowards and traitors for the sacrifices they made abandoning their land, comrades, and whatever else they left behind.

The lack of sympathy is a little astonishing to me, however, considering they were once feared for their cunning and resolve, brave ones who wouldn't back down against anyone on the continent. I suppose some feel a sense of vindication in seeing them suffer.

As for how we felt...

While our side had accomplished almost all of our objectives, we still had the most important task ahead.

Miwen: "Yeah... I hate to give it to them, but I can see why they thought the city wouldn't fall."

Even from afar, Amencia seemed to be as impressive as Gerbil tried to convey.

Its walls extended far, surrounding the entire city, which was already one of the biggest on the continent. There were also layers of extra protection, with wall formations around towers and military buildings.

They were also incredibly tall and, surprisingly, well-maintained.

For a city that has not met an opposing army for centuries, I would have expected the walls and the weapons mounted on them to be crumbling down, but apparently, the city itself was a matter of pride for this nation, and so, it was kept in pristine condition, even when no threats presented themselves against it.

Thankfully, it wasn't all bad news.

The city's defenses went through many different reforms over time, so while Gabriella couldn't get us the most up to date information on it, she did manage to get her hands on many schematics that gave us a pretty good notion of what to expect, especially when paired with her impressions and investigations from within the city.

Beatrice: "That's no good... You can get cold feet now..."

Miwen: "And why would I when I know my ever-so-reliable witch has good news in store for me?"

Beatrice: "Hah... I wish I could be as optimistic... I think it might take years for me to break every magic formation alone. This was... An incredibly busy city. The magic entanglement is ten times worse than I thought it would be. It's disgustingly huge. Nauseating..."

I'm not sure how deep her analysis went, but for a second, it seemed like she was going to throw up.

Of course, one can always just stop to recollect their thoughts, but when it comes to magic, Bea usually gets a bit over-excited and loses track of her own health. Or rather, she sees no problem in sacrificing it for testing and understanding more of the magic around her.

Miwen: "As long as you can destroy the ones Gabriella told us about, that'd be a huge help."

Beatrice: "I suppose... I'll work on them first, then."

Even though we had no way of knowing every system protecting the city, Gabriella gave us a good starting point with the few she discovered.

Mia: "I can't believe so many are still willing to fight."

Right...

Normally, you'd expect the army or the lords to have already abandoned or even killed Gerbil themselves, but perhaps the latter option was impossible when he had control over the two undead knights.

As for why a rebellion didn't happen... Maybe it was our fault.

With the threat of the North Dragon, anyone with enough power and influence to start a plot against King Gerbil probably decided not to. It was just too risky and the reward too low since even if they won, they'd be the ones tasked with defeating the dragon.

Still, their army itself shrank a lot throughout the campaign.

We had avoided a direct battle against them, but casualties were unavoidable when moving an army as large as theirs.

They also had many defectors, although, as Mia said, it was impressive that they managed to maintain thousands of men in their ranks when the likelihood of them winning the war was diminishing so much with each passing day.

Their morale was as low as we'd expected, though.

They had focused entirely on playing defense to inflict as much damage to us as possible for every territory lost and to make up for their army's losing strength. Unfortunately, to the average man, this might've only made Isabella's army look like an unstoppable force.

Especially since we had the luxury of picking and choosing our battles, which allowed us to avoid and starve out the holdings most difficult to take.

The ones still fighting now are the most devoted, the ones who saw Hamperlon's past glories and still believe in its ability to rise above, and the naive ones who hope to become a hero and have their names in the country's history and myths.

And well...

Miwen: "...They were willing to offer us half of whatever is in their treasury, right? I'm sure they offered their lords a similarly enticing deal. If not more."

Although it would be naive to think that they didn't use shady tactics as well.

At this point, however, the means didn't matter too much to us. Whatever they did to maintain their army wouldn't change what we had to do.

Mia: "...I guess. They were always a greedy bunch..."

Miwen: "Right... Let's head back now."

On the first day, there was no action.

After a few battles, it was decided that the army would stop and recover before committing to Amencia's siege.

We were to stay in one of the towns recently conquered, but I could tell Mia was apprehensive, so...

We decided to go for a walk.

See the place where our last battle would take place...

I was hoping I could make fun of them to make her a little more tranquil, but unfortunately, Mia was too smart for something like that to work.

It would be insensitive if I tried to lie about what all of us could see, so... I thought it would be better to accept reality.

After all, no matter how strong they may be, victory would be ours. Definitely.

Still, as the days passed, I felt her resolve grow.

For months, we made no discernible progress, but we kept grinding away against the wall and the barriers protecting the city, hoping to exhaust their resources, be they food, water, potions, or will.

We changed our focus from time to time, trying to make them overcommit and weaken a side we could later exploit.

Beatrice did her job wonderfully in the first week, breaking two of their systems. However, this wasn't enough for us to advance, and they ended up being prepared before she could finish another one.

Due to the abundance of magic and systems in the city that had nothing to do with its defenses, she was quite overwhelmed, but she never stopped working, and from time to time, she'd figure out another one.

Although I had to ask her not to destroy them instantly, and instead save as many as she could to try a sabotage operation.

During this time, we were careful for any traps, but it seemed like Hamperlon didn't have the force or will to attack us, so we detached some men to search for alternative ways into the city.

Some of Gabriella's schematics included escape routes that she was given for her own safety, but those tunnels were already closed after her betrayal.

With no access to Dungeons nearby and the frozen lands waiting behind them, the chances of our targets escaping were low, but still... Just in case, we kept some men to guard those tunnels.

We tried as much as we could, until eventually, we found a breakthrough.

Miwen: "Are you ready?"

Mia: "Yes."

Mia was always one of the more hardworking girls in the Kingdom, but for the past months, she started training much harder, to the point where even Anna and Angelica weren't able to keep up with her and asked me to help them more often than not.

It truly felt like she was on a warpath, and I worried about her health and sanity, but whenever I tried to convince her to rest, she'd only do it for a few minutes before going back to it.

She earned herself a reputation after practicing against almost every single noteworthy knight in the camp, but somehow, in the insanity that was her training, I could see that she was truly trying to better herself as much as possible before her fight.

So... I ended up allowing her to do as she pleased.

Miwen: "And you two... It's not too late to think-"

Licia: "Don't worry, we came up with a strategy."

Claire: "Yep. He doesn't stand a chance."

Even though they recovered, I almost wished they hadn't, as the first thing they asked for was to have a rematch against the black knight.

It was a given for Claire, but even Licia seemed determined to fight him again...

Miwen: "Hah..."

It was an impossible battle for me to win, so I tried reaching for a compromise.

Miwen: "Remember. The girls will be there with you, and if it seems like you're gonna lose, even for a moment-"

Claire: "We won't, though?"

Miwen: "Right. In that case... Let's go, shall we?"

There were a few things I didn't like about this, but...

These three insisted so much on their battles that I had no choice.

And as long as the others were there with them, I trusted they'd come back to me safe and sound.

With our preparations done and the men more than ready for their last battle, Isabella gave the order, and we marched against the city.

The last act of Hamperlon's fall had started.